Ryan Blessing
Norwich Bulletin
COLCHESTER, Vt. — In the words of their chief, “It was like Christmas” for the members of the Corinth, Vt., fire department, who visited Colchester over the weekend for training at the town’s live burn facility at Schuster Park.
What the dozen members of the Corinth volunteer department didn’t know when they got there Saturday morning was that Colchester’s volunteers had some surprises in store.
They were impressed when the Essex Fire Department gave them a new set of hydraulic tools — known as the jaws of life — used to help free victims trapped in vehicles.
But what really made their jaws drop was a gift from the Columbia Fire Department, with some help from Colchester Deputy Chief Don Lee and the local firefighters.
“Run it,” Lee said into a handheld radio after presenting the tools. Seconds later, sirens wailed as a massive engine tanker truck rounded a wooded corner and rolled into view in front of the Vermont firefighters, including Chief Ed Pospisil.
Why was the small Vermont town — population about 1, 400 — getting a new truck and other equipment?
Pospisil, who retired after more than 30 years in the Hartford, Vt., Fire Department as the organization’s most-decorated firefighter, was appalled by the condition of the Corinth station and equipment about a year ago when he became chief.
“It’s like a third-world station,” he said.
The cinder-block fire station is really just a garage with a dirt floor and no running water, he said. Firefighters use an open-cab 1947 engine truck to respond to fires in the 50 square-mile town, most of it dirt roads.
Firefighters wear tin miners’ helmets and rubber coats, instead of more modern gear, he said.
Hearing about these conditions from his friend, Pospisil — whom everyone calls Ed Pop or Chief Popsicle — Lee went to work.
He got in touch with Columbia Volunteer Fire Department Chief Peter J. Starkel, who had a 1, 000-gallon 1987 American Eagle tanker truck that had been taken out of service about a year earlier.
"(Lee) and his guys did all the work to get it ready,” Starkel said. “This is really what it’s about — brothers helping brothers. This could really snowball.”
In fact, it already has. The town of Bolton is set to give Corinth an ambulance vehicle, Lee said.
“This is going to help not just one community, but a whole area in Vermont,” Lee said.
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